I had made a comment to the person who sent me the article right after the incident happened. I said the cause of the mishap was due to the color of the hull. He came back and told me I was actually more correct than I thought.
There was a lot of corner cutting on an already cheap design and they ran out of money. Instead of the hull being red, they had to mix some cheaper white paint with the red.
I saw that movie. Operation petticoat. Pink submarine.